


Void

by copperwings



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Mentions of Anxiety, Tattoo AU, mentions of bullying, mentions of depression, they're tattoos but they're really not, well it's kind of like fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 04:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11073891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperwings/pseuds/copperwings
Summary: AU in which tattoo-like images appear on people’s skin to help them choose their path in life. Very rarely, a person turns out to be Void: one without pictures. Voids are regarded with suspicion and fear, because it is thought they have no soul and no future.When Yuuri is discovered to be Void and his home town turns against him, he escapes into the world of figure skating. On the ice he can play the role of anyone and not be restricted by what he actually is, but off the ice it's a constant battle of trying to hide his true nature from the world.





	Void

_They say one’s future is written in the sequences of DNA that make up a person. That the base pairs that make you who you are also hold the knowledge about who you will become as time passes._

_And once you’re old enough, your DNA begins to manifest your future through your skin as pictures that emerge, allowing you to determine what path you should walk on._

 

When Yuuri was a child, he used to love listening to his father’s stories about his pictures. Yuuri remembered being tucked into bed with his big sister Mari, and their father would point to a picture embedded into his skin, and begin, “This appeared when I was seventeen and I’d just met your mother, and that’s when I knew she was the one…”

The stories were always the same, of course, but they enjoyed them nonetheless. There was the one with three shooting stars splayed across his heart – one big and two smaller – and that was his father’s favorite one to talk about. Because the big one was, of course, representing their mother. And the two small ones were Mari and Yuuri. Their father had met their mother in his youth, the picture had appeared soon after, and he had known they would marry and have two children.

“I transferred to another school, and she went there. She was beautiful, your mother. Well, she still is.” Yuuri’s father smiled to himself. “So beautiful.” Yuuri pulled the covers over his head, embarrassed, and peeked over the edge. His sister sighed and leaned her chin on her hands wistfully, but at six years old, Yuuri knew all he needed to know about love. It was _gross_.

The many swirling images beneath his father’s skin were signs of a life lived, decisions he’d come across along the way. All of his pictures were simple and pretty self-explanatory, reflecting his nature. Yuuri’s mother’s pictures were more complex, some with meanings she hadn’t figured out yet. Yuuri wondered what his pictures would be like. Around the age of six he started checking his skin every night when changing into his pajamas, to see if something was forming beneath the smooth surface. Sometimes he took a marker and drew something on his skin, for a moment wondering if his first picture would be anything like the lines of his drawing. His mother caught him doing it ever so often, and she made him wash the marker off, hugged him and told him to stop worrying about it.

“I was almost eight when my first picture appeared, Yuu-chan,” she said, pressing a kiss on his nose. “It’s different for everyone. They’ll come along, sweetie, just you wait.”

Except for they didn’t.

One by one, all of Yuuri’s friends at school started getting their first pictures, and it was always celebrated like a second birthday. It was a major milestone—your first picture appearing. One by one his friends could show off their images, on shoulders, arms, legs, and he kept waiting for his. He turned eight and still no images. Some of his friends already had two. Yuuri’s mother called him a late bloomer and told him not to worry, but Mari had gotten her first picture at six and a half years old so Yuuri knew something had to be wrong with him. He could see it in his parents’ eyes as they prepared for Mari’s first ceremonial Reading when she was fifteen.

Yuuri told himself he didn’t care. It wasn’t unheard of for a younger male sibling to bloom late. That’s what his mother kept telling him.

“So, how was it?” Yuuri asked after Mari had come back from the Reading.

Mari shrugged. “I don’t know. She was very old and it smelled funny in there. She told me the rabbit and the tree branch could be something about my future work, but just as well something about my future family…”

Reading was vague like that. It was almost impossible to know what someone else’s images meant – mostly it was up to people themselves to determine the meanings behind the images.  But the Readers could push one in the right direction; give them an idea of what a given image might represent. The Readers knew more about the history of the pictures than anyone, as they’d studied records of the images and their meanings in the national archives.

Yuuri knew their town’s archive was the big gray building next to the library. He had once gone there with his mother when she had a question about one of her images that her usual Reader hadn’t been able to answer. It was a pattern around her ankle, showing what her Reader thought to be phases of a solar eclipse. Only no one could figure out what it meant.

They had searched for eclipse patterns in the archive but there had been nothing in the recorded history of their town about this kind of image. Mother had seemed frustrated, but she had been told there wasn’t much else to be done, unless she wanted to visit the national archives in Tokyo. Mother had declined politely, and they had returned home, with Yuuri walking behind his mother and watching the solar phases in her ankle going up and down as she had paced down the sidewalk, her hair bouncing around her shoulders in a similar pattern than her skirt was dancing around her calves.

Soon after Mari’s first Reading Yuuri turned nine and they traveled to Tokyo. Not for the picture on his mother’s ankle, though. Yuuri’s parents wanted to know why he hadn’t gotten his first image yet, when he should have had one for over a year already. People had started whispering in school, and Yuuri thought the neighbors sometimes looked at him funny when he was playing with his dog outside the onsen. Sometimes the looks were ominous, and Yuuri didn’t know why.

“How old is he again?” The lady with glasses looked at Yuuri over her desk.

“Nine years and three months,” Yuuri’s mother told the lady. Yuuri’s father reached out from the chair next to his and squeezed Yuuri’s hand reassuringly. Yuuri stared at the calendar on the wall, tracing the edges of the letters and numbers with his gaze. _March,_ _2002_.

“And there’s no indication of anyone being this late in either of your families?”

Yuuri’s mother shook her head. “None. Toshiya got his first picture at six and two, was it?” She looked at Yuuri’s father for confirmation and he nodded. “And I was seven years and nine months. But there hasn’t been anyone who has been over nine years at the time of their first image.”

The lady looked down at her papers. “I see.”

Yuuri’s mother looked worried. “Some people have started talking,” she said. “They say it means that… that _he has no future_.” The last words were a mere whisper.

Yuuri’s father looked at her sternly. “We don’t need to discuss this in front of Yuuri. Those are stupid superstitions. Don’t you think for one second they’re right.” Yuuri realized the last remark was meant for him. He swallowed and looked from the calendar to his mother, who seemed to be in anguish. It had Yuuri worried. What if they were right? What if he had no future?

The lady with the glasses placed her hands on top of the small pile of papers on her desk. “Well. It’s definitely too soon to draw any conclusions such as that. But nonetheless, just to be prepared, when you called ahead that you were coming, I searched the archives for this rare condition. Unfortunately it’s not very well documented as it was until recently regarded as a taboo of sorts—but… have you heard of the people referred to as ‘Void’?”

 

~

 

By the age of fifteen Yuuri had lost the few friends who had still lingered, after some of the parents called him “soulless” and told their kids to stay away from him. Yuuri had started wearing long sleeves and long jeans even in the summer as to not draw attention to his obviously imageless skin, but he could feel them staring whenever he walked down the streets of their small town. He felt them staring when he shopped for groceries for his mother. He felt them staring when he went to the library to check out some books. He felt them staring when he stood at the bus stop waiting for his ride to school. The stares followed him around everywhere, and you’d think one would get used to that. Yuuri didn’t.

One day back when he had been eleven, Yuuri had been running away from the bullies who were throwing pebbles at him and calling him a freak. Crying, he had run up a flight of stairs blindly and found himself outside the town’s small ice rink. Wiping his cheeks, he had gone inside and got stuck staring at a girl practicing on the ice. Her movements had been careful and deliberate, and Yuuri found himself wanting to look like she did – graceful and in control. The girl, Yuuko, had noticed him staring and invited him to join her on ice.

Yuuri had soon discovered that figure skating allowed him to feel free, unjudged. On the ice, he could be anyone, portray anyone. Yuuko had let him to come to the rink to practice after hours, probably because she felt sorry for him. But she never acknowledged him in public, and Yuuri understood why; she wanted to protect herself. It was understandable. Nobody wanted to be known as the freak’s friend.

So Yuuri poured his loneliness and frustration in his skating, day after day. He practiced by watching videos, first the ones he had taped from television, and later with videos on YouTube. At first he fell flat on his face a lot, but every time he did, he remembered that some people believed he would never become anything, and so he gritted his teeth and got up again. And again.

Yuuri was what people called Void. Pictureless. _Soulless_ , some said. Apparently, he had no future. _Destined to die young_ , some whispered. Still, he got up every morning, got ready and went to school. He came back home, ate dinner, did his homework, went to the rink and practiced alone for hours, came home and went to bed. And somehow he woke up every morning, still alive. Still completely void of pictures that should have been emerging on his skin.

The national archives didn’t help Yuuri much. They knew there were other people who shared his predicament, but there wasn’t much information about the condition itself. _Condition_. Like he was sick. Maybe he was, but he didn’t feel sick. He regularly practiced hours on end, and his doctor couldn’t find a single thing wrong with him. Well, aside from the fact that his skin was flawlessly pale without a single picture anywhere in sight.

He finished high school and got a skating scholarship to a college in Detroit. He thought it would be different there, because no one knew him. After all, it was on another _continent_. They didn’t have to know about his _condition_ , right?

 

~

 

“ _Don’t look now, but that’s him_.”

Yuuri heard the loud whisper from across the hall, and there was that strangling feeling in his throat again. He tugged his sleeves down, suddenly feeling like they should cover more than just the skin down to his wrists. Yuuri swallowed, readjusted his backpack on his shoulders and turned to look at the group of people staring at him from across the hall.

Yuuri tried to look confident and go about his day as usual, but it was clear that someone had gotten a hold of a piece of information that was now spreading like wildfire across campus. Yuuri walked from one class to another, trying not to look like he cared about the whispers.

The whispers were the worst, though. It would have been easier if people actually just came up to him and said what they thought to his face. He could deal with that kind of confrontation, at least better than with the whispers surrounding him. The whispers followed him around, haunting him like echoes in the wind. And he couldn’t fight echoes.

The following day people didn’t sit next to him during lectures anymore. The table he occupied at lunch was all his. Yuuri stared down at his plate and fought the constricting feeling that threatened to seal his throat shut. Around his table, there was a silent bubble of people seemingly communicating only with their eyes. He didn’t want to look, because he knew what those eyes were saying. He had seen it before, many times.

He had seen it in the eyes of the doctor who examined him twelve months ago so the college could be sure he would qualify for the offered athlete scholarship. The doctor had treated him like he had leprosy. He had seen it in the eyes of his high school PE teacher back in Hasetsu when Yuuri had handed him the permission slip from his doctor, detailing his reasons to be excused from swimming lessons. And now he could see it in the eyes of everyone around him, as they stared at him like he was a bomb they were expecting to go off at any second.

Yuuri took in a deep breath, realized he was not going to be able to eat his lunch and got up from the table. The silence around him was tangible. Yuuri looked down to his tray as he navigated toward the trash cans. He dumped his untouched lunch into the trash, left the tray on the trolley next to it and started making his way toward the exit.

It was a weird feeling of everything happening in slow motion. Yuuri felt his heartbeats ringing in his ears, his breaths rushing in and out in rapid succession, but everything else had slowed down. He walked to the doors and people made way, shuffling out of his path and turning to look as he slowly advanced to the door. Yuuri felt their eyes on his back as he pushed the door open and left the cafeteria. The door swung slowly outwards, he passed through the doorframe and stepped outside.

Suddenly the world was operating at a normal speed again. The door slammed shut behind him, and he heard the whispers starting behind it. Yuuri quickly walked off before those hissing sounds could reach him. It was like a pit of snakes inside the cafeteria.

Yuuri knew everyone had already thought he was weird before. The boy who stayed by himself, who practiced on the ice whenever possible. The one who never showed any skin. Who never talked about his pictures. But now they knew why. They _knew_. And it was happening all over again.

The exclusion. The looks. The whispers.

Yuuri swallowed and walked blindly across the campus to the only safe place he could think of.

He rushed over to the rink, let himself in and climbed the stands up to the very last row. He sought the most desolate corner behind the seats and slowly sunk down onto the floor behind the backrests. Yuuri pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them close. He stared at nothingness and tried to concentrate on breathing. In and out. In and out. In and out. After a while, his knees stopped trembling and his breathing returned to normal. But there was that familiar feeling of emptiness inside, like he was standing at the edge of an abyss and something wanted to pull him in.

Yuuri knew that there were other people like him somewhere out there, but not much was known about them and they usually didn’t advertise their existence. While the history of images on people was well documented and archived, the same couldn’t be said about Void people. For the longest time, they had been regarded as sinister or evil, and Yuuri had read that during the witch hunts the ones who were most likely to be burnt at the stake were Voids. It was chilling to know that years and years ago, all over the world, people like him were burnt and stoned to death because other people had been afraid of what they were. The national archive lady had told him that Voids had essentially been scapegoats in every major event in history. But as to _why_ some people turned out like him, no one seemed to know. A fault in the DNA, perhaps? A mutation? Either way, in the eyes of other people, he was something that didn’t fit the norms. A _freak_.

Yuuri suddenly needed to get off the campus. He didn’t think the student body would come after him with pitchforks and torches, but one could never be too sure. It only took one very convincing person to turn the tide against anyone, as he had seen too many times in high school.

Yuuri got up and collected his backpack from the floor. It felt like the whispers were surrounding him again even though there was no one else in the rink in the middle of the day. Maybe the voices were the ghosts of the whispers that had followed him through middle school and high school. Yuuri sometimes felt like he had walked through his life in a cloud of whispers and stares.

The thing that bothered Yuuri the most was that it was not just him this was affecting. It reached his family by extension as well. He knew Mari had had her fair share of fights because she was the sister of ‘the freak’. Yuuri knew sometimes Mari wished she could hate him. She had said so on multiple occasions. And Yuuri didn’t blame her.

Yuuri made his way down the stairs of the stands and out of the rink. He might have been imagining it – maybe his mindset was locked onto a certain scenario in which everyone suddenly _knew_ – but it felt like the whole campus stopped when he stepped through the rink doors. Yuuri felt them watching him as he passed by, his eyes carefully trained on the pavement before him, and the damned whispers started again, right behind him. Always right behind him.

Yuuri walked off the campus and headed for the bus stop. He didn’t feel like going to his dorm room right now, even if he didn’t share the room with anyone so it was a guaranteed place of solitude. He needed to get off campus completely so he could think. He kind of wanted to call home, but he didn’t want to hear the sadness in his mother’s voice if he told her it was happening again.

She had been so happy for Yuuri for the past twelve months because college had started off so _great_. Yuuri smiled grimly at the thought. His family had _severely_ lowered its standards on ‘great’ in the last decade or so. Whereas ‘great’ in the first grades of primary school had meant Yuuri having an extensive social circle with friends for each finger, ‘great’ these days meant even one day when Yuuri didn’t get harassed when he stepped out of the house. College had been ‘great’ so far, because he had been merely considered weird and elusive, not a freak of nature or an abomination.

So much for that now.

Yuuri hailed the next bus to stop and headed off the campus toward the crowded downtown area. Coming from a small town, big cities with their almost-assured anonymity were such a relief sometimes. Yuuri could walk around and no one would look at him twice. Sometimes he got weird looks when he wore long sleeves in the heat of the summer, but even then, it wasn’t the same as the looks he got from those who _knew_.

Yuuri walked around the downtown area and basked in the lack of stares. It felt like the weight of a lifetime was lifted off his shoulders. Yuuri stopped at a coffee shop for some takeaway tea and walked to the riverbank. After a while he stopped to sit down on one of the benches looking over the river. People were walking past him without a second glance. He could hear the even hum of traffic from behind him. The air smelled of slightly polluted river water. The tea tasted like freedom.

He had grown to appreciate the little things in life, having so few of the bigger things to appreciate. Like a partner, or some friends, anything.

Yuuri wished he could stay here forever, in the place where no one knew him or what he was, but he knew these precious moments were only his to borrow for a little while. Reality always caught up with him eventually.

He sat on the bench until it got dark, and then made his way back to the campus and to the rink. There was no one else in the rink when he got there, which Yuuri thought was a relief. He still kept his long-sleeve jacket on in case someone else came in, though. The rumors had undoubtedly spread all over by now, but there was no use in proving the rumors to be true by showing off his blank skin.

After an exhausting three hours in the empty rink, Yuuri made his way back to his dorm room. He didn’t see anyone on his way, and he slinked into his room and closed the door behind him. Walking around campus felt like being chased by werewolves that could lie in wait behind any corner, but at least here in his own room he could be sure they couldn’t get to him.

Yuuri phoned his mother; after all, it was daytime in Japan right now.

“ _Why are you awake at this hour?_ ” was the first thing she asked after picking up. After twelve months, she was very aware of what time it was in Detroit any given moment.

Yuuri sighed and said, “Someone found out. The rumors are all over campus now.”

She didn’t need to ask, _found out what?_ She knew right away.

“ _Oh, Yuuri_ ,” she sighed, and there was so much pain and love in her voice that Yuuri had to bite his lip to be able to continue.

“Sometimes I wish I could just move up to a small cabin in the woods in Canada and never see another person again,” Yuuri said, staring down at his lap as small droplets fell quietly on his thighs and dotted his pants in damp spots. He wanted to say something more, but he felt like his words were already betraying him, revealing the tears in his voice. He swapped the phone from one ear to the other and wiped his cheeks angrily.

Yuuri’s mother sighed into the phone, and in his mind Yuuri could see that familiar crease forming between her eyebrows again. He knew he had been the main cause of that crease of worry becoming a near-permanent feature on her face, even if it had been involuntary on his part. Just like that solar eclipse picture around her ankle. After extensive research, her Reader had said the eclipse meant something that was hidden. The Reader had concluded it meant that one of her children was _hidden_ somehow. Hidden from fate, hidden from the future. _Void_. Yuuri had heard his mother talking about it to his father. The conversation probably hadn’t been meant for his ears, but walls in their home were paper thin, so he had been forced to listen to his mother sobbing and his father trying to soothe her.

“ _Oh, honey…_ ” His mother’s voice brought him back to the present. Yuuri’s mother sighed again, still at loss for words when it came to Yuuri’s _condition_. Even over the phone, she sounded old and tired.

Yuuri wondered if his condition was the reason for her having aged so quickly. Yuuri looked down on his lap again, swallowing guiltily. He spent so much time about worrying about what people thought of him, he often forgot that his mother and father probably had it just about as bad. Just like Mari did. But they still loved him, defended him, were there for him.

“I love you, _okaasan_ ,” Yuuri said, unable to prevent the sob escaping from his lips.

“ _And I love you_ ,” his mother replied. “ _That will never change_.”

At least he had that; a small island of love that was his family, in the ocean of hatred and fear.

 

~

 

The university librarian looked at Yuuri over her glasses. “Void people?” she repeated his question. “We may have something digitalized from microfiche on one of the research computers. Old scientific articles, although not many would consider them very scientific at this day and age, I think…”

Yuuri had asked the question so many times now that it came out almost bored-sounding. “Why do you think there isn’t any research done on the topic? I mean, we have DNA research and it’s gotta be linked to that, right?” He had said that he was doing a research paper on Void people and needed references.

The librarian took off her glasses and folded them on her desk with a sigh. “It’s the economy, dear boy. Before, we didn’t have the technology and knowledge, now when we do, the economy has gone to hell and there aren’t enough resources to study something that has no monetary value. The condition is so rare after all.”

Yuuri gritted his teeth quietly. It was always fun to hear that what was a life-and-death question to him was of no interest to anyone because there wasn’t any money to be made from it. Imaged people, of course, had been excessively studied over the years. Along with DNA sequencing it had been learned that the pictures that surfaced on people’s skin were caused by a genetic trait that raised melanin concentrations in the deep layers of the skin, forming images and patterns. It was the same process across all races and continents. No one knew why it happened, though, and similarly, no one knew why for some people it _didn’t_.

The images on a person’s body could change over time, indicating that it was an ongoing biological process. Often the images did change from youth to adulthood, as the person matured and their life path became clearer to them. It was viewed as a growing process, from the whimsical pictures of childhood into the mature and more Readable pictures of adulthood. That’s why the first Readings were usually done at the age of fifteen, because it was around that age when people’s paths were starting to become clearer.

Yuuri’s research on the library computer didn’t tell him anything he hadn’t already read online. Doing research about Void people online was hazardous, though, because of the comment sections. Yuuri had made the mistake of reading through the comment sections a couple of times, and now he tried to avoid the online discussions like plague.

So his knowledge on the matter stayed pretty much the same. No one knew why most people got their future written on their skin, and no one knew why a few rare people were left unmarked.

Yuuri knew that once a person died, though, the melanin broke down, leaving a unicolor skin behind. So in the end everyone looked the same again as they had when they were born.

In a way it was a relief to know that at least in death Yuuri was going to look just like everyone else.

 

~

 

Yuuri didn’t know why he was doing this, but he was sitting in a dark corner of a bar, watching people. Some of them were drunk, others not as much, but they all seemed to be having a good time. They all had people surrounding them, smiling people who cared about them and wanted to spend time with them. Sometimes Yuuri wished he knew what that was like.

It was no wonder no one paid much attention to him, sitting alone in a dark corner with a forgotten glass of soda in front of him. They said that misery loved company, but Yuuri honestly didn’t want any of these people to feel sad just because he was sad. It was much better to watch happy people. Yuuri’s eyes traced the lines of their pictures, proudly set on display in tight tops and skirts; peeking from under short sleeves. Animal figures climbing up on the backs of bare legs, abstract patterns across their arms and chests, the occasional numerals and letters thrown into the mix. Living their normal lives, with images guiding them whenever an important decision approached. It was probably easy to live like that. Yuuri looked down at his long-sleeved sweater, the neckline encircling his neck, hugging close to his pulse point. He was covered up from head to toe, unlike all these people.

When a man approached Yuuri, he almost subconsciously pulled his sleeves all the way down over his hands and clutched them into his palms as if the man would try to rip them up any moment. The man looked at Yuuri, tilted his head to the side and said, “Hey. What are you doing here all alone?”

It was probably the second-most clichéd pick-up line ever, but Yuuri usually didn’t get even those, so he attempted a smile. “Just lost in thought, I guess.”

“Oh.” The man leaned against the other side of the high table. “What are you thinking about?”

“About what it would be like to be normal,” Yuuri replied quizzically. It was entirely true; just not the _entire_ truth.

The man laughed. “Don’t we all?”

Yuuri glanced at the man’s left arm, where an abstract game of connect-the-dots was splayed. He looked away quickly, though, because looking at someone’s pictures usually sparked a conversation about them, and Yuuri could never really participate in those. “Are you alone here?” Yuuri asked to divert the man’s attention.

“No, I have a couple of buddies by the bar, but I’m in no hurry to go back there.” The man was clearly flirting. Yuuri swallowed. Why would he do that? Yuuri was wearing a turtleneck long-sleeve sweater and jeans in a bar on a Friday night. He was nothing like the women in their amazing dresses and high heels or the other men in their short-sleeved or occasionally sleeveless shirts, displaying their arms in all their imaged glory. Yuuri looked up at the man across the table again. Perfectly nice features, clothes and figure, and absolutely no indication as to why he was currently standing next to Yuuri, who was sweating uncomfortably in his sweater. There was a flash of _something_ in the man’s eyes, though, something that Yuuri recognized as lust.

The only times Yuuri had had sex had been in complete darkness. He had pegged it all on being very shy, but he couldn’t really let people know why they couldn’t see him naked. He didn’t want the person he was about to have sex with to recoil in horror and look at Yuuri like he was suddenly sprouting an extra head when he took his clothes off.

The man stayed and tried to flirt more, but eventually left, awkwardly saying something about checking up on his friends. He never came back. It wasn’t the first time that Yuuri had managed to alienate someone by being elusive, and it wouldn’t be the last. Yuuri sipped on his soda that had gone flat long ago, and finally got up with a sigh and left. He’d had enough of happy people for one night.

 

~

 

Yuuri avoided the university campus as much as possible after the rumors started. He spent most of his time in the rink, and when he was too tired to practice he left the campus area to go wandering around places where no one knew who he was. That’s how he came about the billboard ad.

Yuuri sat on the bench on the bus stop and stared at the advertisement on the billboard in awe. He was not the only one staring, either. People all around him stopped and took another look at the scandalous picture splayed across the billboard. The ad was for a perfume, with a woman lying on her stomach on a bed, stark naked. The photo had been taken from the side, and the perfume bottle was strategically placed on the curve of her back. She was looking at the camera with sultry eyes and her lips were slightly open, inviting, one index finger touching the lower lip lightly.

The woman in the ad was completely naked, but that wasn’t the scandalous part. In the black and white photo her skin was also completely white; not a single image in sight, _nothing_ on her skin. Yuuri didn’t know whether her pictures had been covered with makeup for the photoshoot or if she was like him – either way, she was mesmerizing. And apparently shocking as well.

Yuuri wasn’t sure what to think of the ad. It was definitely noticeable, and perhaps the perfume sold better because of the shock value, but it somehow seemed awful that the marketing team had chosen to use something that to him was such a source of anxiety as a carefully planned tactic to make more money. He sighed in disgust, but couldn’t look away from the ad. Perhaps that was the idea behind it. It shocked people, but nobody could look away. Just like they could never look away when Yuuri was present; at least the ones who _knew_.

Yuuri heard the conversation that the ad sparked behind him. The word ‘unnatural’ was used several times, along with ‘creepy’ and ‘weird’. All words that had been used to describe Yuuri himself on many occasions. Yuuri pulled his coat tighter and glanced over his shoulder casually. Two older women stood on the street corner a small distance away, fingers pointed at the billboard, mouths moving rapidly as they complained about the woman in the photograph.

Detroit was big enough of a city so Yuuri didn’t have to worry about these women _knowing_ , but there was still a cold feeling trickling down his back, like snow melting inside his coat. He glanced in the direction where the women were and startled when there was a noise from the other end of the bench.

“Well, that sure is interesting,” said the young man who had just sat down. He was also looking at the billboard.

Yuuri made a noncommittal noise in response, tugging at his coat sleeves. He did a quick side-glance to assess the man sitting beside him. Shorter than Yuuri, with black hair and brown skin, pictures peeking from under his sleeves and even from under the collar of his shirt. Yuuri hunched his shoulders to make the blank skin on his neck less noticeable.

The man looked over at him. “You go to the college that’s that way, right?” He pointed to over his shoulder. “I think I’ve seen you on campus.”

Yuuri swallowed and his eyes flicked here and there to estimate possible escape routes in case running was needed. “Yeah. I started about a year ago.”

“I started just now, like a few weeks back,” the dark-haired man beamed and extended a hand in Yuuri’s direction. “My name is Phichit. Nice to meet you!”

“Yuuri,” Yuuri said and cautiously shook the offered hand. It would have been polite to say that it was nice to meet Phichit as well, but Yuuri was quite sure that Phichit would stop talking to him the second someone filled him in on Yuuri’s predicament, so it didn’t really matter what he said or didn’t say to Phichit.

“What dorm building are you in?” Phichit asked.

“Uh,” Yuuri said. “2A.” Actually, he was in 4C but he didn’t want to shout out his address to anyone. It was enough that the people living on the same floor than him knew where he lived; he didn’t want to shout it to everyone on campus.

“Oh, funny that I haven’t seen you around. What floor are you on?”

Of course, from all the possible dorm buildings Yuuri had to pick the one Phichit apparently lived in. “I’m… on the first floor?” Yuuri couldn’t help the fact that his reply sounded more like a question than an answer.

Phichit looked at him and wrinkled his brow. “Look, if you don’t want to tell me where you live, that’s fine.” His formerly bright smile had faded away.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said, not knowing how to explain himself. How could he explain all the years of abuse and torment, the fact that he didn’t trust anyone but his own family, the fact that Phichit would probably turn away, disgusted, if he knew what Yuuri was?

“It’s just that I’ve seen you around the campus and you’re always alone,” Phichit said.

 _For a good reason_ , Yuuri didn’t reply.

“But if you prefer it that way, just say so and I’ll get out of your hair.” Phichit glanced at Yuuri sadly.

Yuuri opened his mouth, then closed it again. Here he had a person, who was apparently offering his friendship to Yuuri, and Yuuri had no capacity to deal with a situation like this. No one had ever wanted to be his friend before. For as long as he remembered, he had been alone.

“You don’t want me to leave,” Phichit said, and there was something weird in his tone. “But you can’t say it. Why?”

 _Because nobody ever stays_ , Yuuri screamed inwardly. _When they find out, they all leave. You will, too._

“So, I’m guessing it’s true what they say about you?”

Yuuri’s entire body froze immediately. His lower lip started trembling without his consent and he stared intensively at the ground in front of him, waiting for the slurs to begin, every muscle in his body taut and ready to spring into action in case there were punches thrown.

When it had been several seconds and Phichit hadn’t said anything, Yuuri risked a glance to the younger man beside him on the bench. Phichit was looking back at him and his expression was completely neutral.

“You’re Void?” Phichit asked in a low tone.

Yuuri nodded, wincing a little at the dreaded word.

“Okay,” Phichit said.

Yuuri slowly turned his head and stared at Phichit, shocked. “ _Okay?_ ”

“Okay.” Phichit shrugged. “My sister is, too. No biggie.”

Yuuri’s mouth fell open. Here was a young man, offering Yuuri his friendship despite knowing he was a Void and talking about Voids like it was just a regular everyday thing. “Your… sister?” Yuuri repeated slowly, not quite comprehending what was happening.

“Yeah, she still lives in Thailand with my family. But she’s eighteen, and not a single picture on her skin.” Phichit shrugged again in a gesture that said, _well, what can you do?_

“You don’t think it’s odd?” Yuuri asked, his interest piqued. How could Phichit talk about the issue with such nonchalance?

“Sure, it’s odd, but there are a lot of odd things in this world.” Phichit smiled. “Why should this one thing be more odd than the rest of the odd stuff?”

 _Why indeed?_ Yuuri wondered.

“So,” Phichit said. “You wanna grab some dinner?”

 

~

 

Yuuri had never had a friend before, so it was weird to get text messages from Phichit, asking him to hang out, get lunch together, go see a movie together.

“Are you sure you want to be seen with me on campus?” Yuuri asked the first time they walked into the cafeteria together. He would have understood if Phichit had wanted to keep their friendship a secret. After all, being seen with Yuuri would brand Phichit for the entire duration of his college years.

“Yuuri. I don’t care what _they_ think.” The words were said with such emphasis that Yuuri couldn’t really argue. “ _They_ are idiots. Like, what does it matter if you’re Void? It’s not like it’s contagious.”

“Don’t say it so loudly,” Yuuri whispered, eyes wide. He had been whispering about this for so long, that Phichit’s casual mentions of the condition seemed louder than thunder.

Phichit sighed, but he lowered his voice as he continued, “Look, if everyone who’s Void keeps hiding it and avoiding the topic, it will never become accepted. I’m trying to advocate Voidness as much as I can so my sister can have a normal life where she can talk about it and wear short sleeves if she wants to.”

Yuuri wanted all that, too, but he didn’t want to be the one in the front line. Life was hard enough as it was, even without being the poster boy for Void people. “I understand that,” he told Phichit. “Really, I do. But this is my life, okay? So it’s my decision to not talk about it.”

Phichit sighed again and nodded sadly. “Of course.”

Aside from Phichit trying to coax Yuuri into talking about his condition openly he was a good friend. Well, Yuuri didn’t really have anything to compare him to, but in Yuuri’s eyes, Phichit was the best friend anyone could ask for. Because Phichit talked to him, hung out with him and looked at him like Yuuri was _completely normal_.

It was very weird.

With Phichit defending Yuuri, his life on campus became much easier. Both of them were avoided and regarded with suspicion, but it was a lot easier to bear when he wasn’t alone anymore.

“Doesn’t it bother you that you’re a pariah by proxy?” Yuuri asked once, when a group of people scattered apart in front of them, leaving a wider-than-necessary gap for just two people to walk through.

“No,” Phichit said and smiled. To him, it was as simple as that.

Phichit started accompanying Yuuri to the rink when he practiced, and Yuuri even managed to get Phichit to try skating.

For someone who hadn’t skated before, Phichit picked it up very fast. “Rollerblading since I was five,” Phichit explained as Yuuri stared, open-mouthed, at his amazing natural talent on ice. “That probably has something to do with it. I mean, it’s not the same, but there are similar aspects to it.”

Over the course of the following weeks, Yuuri taught Phichit the basic jumps, and noticed how quickly Phichit advanced. It was so good to see Phichit’s smiling face after landing his first wobbly salchow, the way Phichit whooped loudly and skated around the rink with his hands raised in victory.

“You’re gonna qualify for competitions next year if you continue like that,” Yuuri said, smiling happily.

“Heck yeah I will!” Phichit said with the self-confidence only he could muster. “Oh, speaking of competitions! I know you have a program all choreographed for yourself, I’ve seen you practice bits of it,” Phichit said after returning to where Yuuri was standing. “Can I see all of it?”

Yuuri pursed his lips thoughtfully, then nodded.

Phichit stepped off the ice and stood leaning onto the side as Yuuri skated to the middle of the ice.

He took his beginning position, eyes trained down on the ice and one leg extended back so his pick was digging into the ice just slightly. His arms were wrapped tightly around his body, as if protecting him from the world.

Yuuri’s program was about his loneliness, about how he could never show himself to the world as he was. The sadness about his solitude was etched into every move he made; the deliberate step sequence and the jumps following one another flawlessly.

Midway through the program, Yuuri glanced over at Phichit and saw him beaming like a miniature sun. In the fraction of a second, Yuuri realized his program didn’t need to end on the note it started; it didn’t need to have a sad ending. The changes he made were small; aligning his head to look at the empty stands were an audience would normally have been, opening his arms and extending them farther from his body, like he was opening up. The choreography stayed almost the same, but his skating now expressed happiness instead of sadness; happiness that he finally had a friend he could share his passion with. He landed his last jump with a smile on his face and came to his final position, beaming back at Phichit who was clapping and shouting.

“Go Yuuri!” Phichit shouted and climbed back into the rink. He skated over to Yuuri and engulfed him in a spontaneous hug.

Yuuri wasn’t used to people hugging him. But he hugged Phichit back nonetheless, and there was an overwhelming sensation of happiness, just because Phichit was his friend. The first friend Yuuri had ever had; a friend who knew what he was and still hugged him and cheered him on.

Yuuri blinked the tears away from his eyes before Phichit would notice them. Phichit finally pulled away from the hug and he was smiling so wide his face was almost split in half.

“You’re really good,” Phichit said. “And I mean like _really_ good. Why haven’t you gotten beyond regional competitions?”

Yuuri sighed and made a little twirl on the ice to gather his thoughts. That was what his coach, Celestino, and the college scholarship board had asked him several times. He had been told in very clear terms that in order to keep his scholarship, he had to compete. So far he had managed to avoid going beyond regional level by screwing up his program. Sometimes it was on purpose, but on others he just needed to look at the audience and think about what their reaction would be if they _knew_ , and the resulting hyperventilating and shaking of his limbs had been enough to ensure he had never even looked in the direction of the podium. Celestino had scolded him for not being able to advance from the regionals, because Yuuri’s coach knew just as well as Yuuri that he had the talent and skills to do so.

Yuuri glanced at Phichit, who was waiting for an answer. “I’m not competing beyond regionals because it would bring exposure, and the last thing I want is the general public finding out what I am,” he said in a quiet, discouraged tone.

Phichit regarded him silently for a while. “But why do you keep skating your emotions out if you don’t mean for the world to ever see it?”

Yuuri glanced at his friend and shrugged.

“I mean, the world _needs_ to see that. It was amazing. I was almost in tears in the beginning, it was so sad. But I’m glad it ended with you happy.”

Yuuri swallowed and smiled. “That’s actually thanks to you. I was showing the happiness of finally having a friend, someone who doesn’t think I’m a freak.”

Phichit’s mouth twisted into a sad smile. “Oh, Yuuri.” He hugged Yuuri again, and this time Yuuri responded more readily.

 

~

 

When the regionals came up the following season, Phichit made Yuuri promise he wouldn’t screw up on purpose.

“Don’t look at the audience, look at me. I’m there,” Phichit said. “Just show them how damn good you are. Go get ‘em, tiger!”

Yuuri handed his glasses to Phichit when it was his turn and skated over to the middle to take his beginning position. Yuuri’s costume was all black and covered him from his skates almost to the pulse points on his neck. There were black sequined flames climbing up his throat and down his arms all the way to his fingertips, sewn on the mesh fabric. His hair was slicked back and there was black liner around his eyes.

Yuuri took his position, with one foot extended back, pick scraping the ice, and his arms protectively around his body, eyes looking down.

The music began, and Yuuri snapped into action. He glanced quickly over to the side where he knew Phichit was standing with Celestino, even though he couldn’t see them clearly.

In his previous competitions Yuuri had always worn contacts, but it was Phichit’s idea to leave them out this time.

“You don’t need them to skate, right? And the less you see of the audience, the better,” Phichit had said, sounding very logical.

It did make skating the program easier. Yuuri could shut out the now-blurry audience and concentrate on the music and expressing his sorrow. His step sequence was light and flowy, contrasting with the heavy emotions he was conveying, and even if one of his quads was slightly over-rotated and he had to touch his hand down on the ice to stay upright, the program was still the best he had ever skated in front of an audience.

When Yuuri stepped off the ice, the audience was still applauding. They had never applauded for him like that. The feeling was slightly intoxicating, and Yuuri kind of wanted to hear more reactions like it.

Celestino immediately rushed over to him with a wide smile on his face, arms wide open. He engulfed Yuuri in a rib-crushing hug. “Now _that’s_ what I’m talking about! _That’s_ the skating I’ve seen in practice but you’ve never brought with you to the competitions. Excellent work! There’s no doubt of you getting a spot on the podium this time!”

That was what Yuuri was afraid of.

When he was standing on the highest spot between two other skaters, he wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

 

~

 

First he won the regionals, then the nationals. Winning was a heady feeling, almost addictive. Standing on the podium with people cheering at him was such unfamiliar territory that for a moment Yuuri could forget that he was not like the others.

But he only needed to do a quick glance at the other two skaters on the podium to see that he was different.

The other skaters’ outfits proudly displayed the pictures embedded in their skins. There was even a skater who had a picture of _actual skates_ on his arm, and his skating costumes always showed this off prominently. Well, _he_ was clearly on the right path in his life, Yuuri thought sadly and looked down at his own costume. Yuuri, on the other hand, would never know if this was the right path for him. He felt like he was fumbling in darkness while other people at least had flashlights to guide them.

Both Yuuri’s short program and free skate outfits were covering him from head to toe, but he was sure at some point someone was going to recognize him. Someone from back home or someone from college; some faceless, anonymous person was going to leak it to the press that he was Void and then he would have to disappear from the face of the earth forever.

But at least for now, he could skate his heart out.

Yuuri was second in both his qualifying events for the Grand Prix Final, which meant he would fly out to Sochi. Phichit was going to accompany him, because Yuuri had made it clear to Celestino that if Phichit didn’t go, he wouldn’t go.

Celestino knew what Yuuri was, of course, and on occasion he had tried to address the issue. They had tried using markers on Yuuri’s skin at times, but during skating he got so sweaty the even the most waterproof markers smudged. So, the option that was left was being covered from head to toe, so that’s what they did.

As Yuuri advanced through the qualifiers, he became known as the skater who avoided the press like plague. He rarely did interviews. Mostly Celestino did those for him, and when Yuuri had to stand to be interviewed, he mostly looked at the floor and gave out one-word answers. The reporters quickly gave up and dubbed him as the _Elusive Nihonjin_. Yuuri groaned when Phichit showed him the first headline with the nickname, but other magazines quickly picked it up, and soon it was everywhere.

 

_Who is the Elusive Nihonjin – click to see exclusive photos and interviews!_

_Elusive Nihonjin places second at both qualifiers – on to Grand Prix Final for the first time!_

_Is the Elusive Nihonjin threatening four-time champion Nikiforov’s first place – read the in-depth analysis from a former skating judge!_

 

Yuuri didn’t read the articles, but Phichit kept up with the press and updated him on it when necessary.

Yuuri was going to Sochi soon, and so far no one had stepped forward and pointed a finger at him, calling out his bluff.

Yuuri knew it was only a matter of time, though.

He just needed to make the most of the time he had left.

 

~

 

Someone slammed a fist into the stall door. Startled, Yuuri looked up from the toilet where he was sitting, silently dripping tears on his thighs.

“Just a minute,” Yuuri managed to say, even though his voice quivered a little. The nerves were getting the best of him. He had flubbed two quads in his short program and was in the last place. Yuuri was not looking forward to next day’s free skate.

Yuuri got up. He pulled the zipper of his jacket up to his chin and wiped his eyes with toilet paper. Outside the door someone was shuffling impatiently. For a moment Yuuri considered flushing the toilet, but it was probably obvious to the person outside that he had been crying, so he didn’t bother faking it.

When Yuuri exited the stall, he was surprised to notice that the other stalls were empty, the doors slightly ajar. But then why had someone banged on the door of the stall he was in?

He turned to face the person leaning on the wall outside the bathroom stall. Despite his small size, the teenager in front of him seemed to fill out the space. His jaw was tilted up challengingly and he was staring at Yuuri angrily with the one green eye that was visible from under his bangs. The sleeves of his training jacket were pushed up to his elbows, and Yuuri saw a picture of a vine of thorns climbing up the teenager’s arm with a single black rose peeking from under the sleeve. His other arm was just pale skin, still unmarked by his fate.

“I know what you are,” said Yuri Plisetsky in a low tone.

Yuuri swallowed and his breath hitched in his throat. “W—what?” he asked in a voice that to his own ears sounded like a squeaking mouse. He cleared his throat and tried to sound nonchalant as he continued, “What are you talking about?”

Yuri Plisetsky flipped his hair off his face so he could fix both his eyes on Yuuri. “I know you’re Void,” he said.

The world seemed to sway from side to side. In an instant Yuuri could see how this was going to end. Yuri Plisetsky, who currently stood in second place, was going to march out of the bathroom, find the closest reporter and spill out Yuuri’s secret for the world to know. And Yuuri would have to escape, find that cabin in the woods and live out the rest of his life as a hermit.

Yuri Plisetsky tilted his head so his hair covered one eye again. “What I want to know is why the hell did you screw up your short program so badly? Are you nervous that if you place high enough to get on the podium someone is going to leak your secret? Because I’ve seen videos of your skating, and your short program today was _so bad_ in comparison it made me cringe.”

Yuuri blinked. “I—You, _what_?” He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Yuri’s reaction to him being Void was so… _tame_. The teenager was lecturing him on his _skating_ , after just off-handedly remarking that he _knew_ what Yuuri was?

Yuri stared at him incredulously, spreading his hands as if waiting for an intelligible answer.

Yuuri had none.

“Seriously, you could at least _try_ to get on that podium with me and Victor. We need some fresh competition and I was actually looking forward to beating you when you’re at your best. But you’re not giving it your all. Fuck, you’re not even giving it a _decent_ try.” Yuri snorted angrily. He pointed a finger at Yuuri’s nose. “Don’t screw up the free skate tomorrow, _baka_.”

With that, Yuri Plisetsky stomped out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind him.

Yuuri almost ran to the hotel room he was sharing with Phichit.

“Phichit,” he gasped at the younger man sitting on the couch. “He—Yuri Plisetsky, he _knows_.”

Phichit immediately put down his phone and came to hug Yuuri. “What happened? How did he find out? Are you okay?” He stepped back and held Yuuri by the shoulders.

Yuuri shook his head, trying to catch his breath. In retrospect, running up seven flights of stairs probably wasn’t the best idea, but there had already been someone in the elevator, and Yuuri hadn’t been in the mood to face anyone right now. Waiting in the lobby for an empty elevator had been out of the question as well, because someone could have arrived at any moment, so he had found the stairs and made a run for it.

“I don’t know,” Yuuri said. “I don’t know how he found out, but that’s not all.” He gulped. “He said I was an idiot for screwing up my short program, and that he expects me to give it my best shot tomorrow.”

Phichit’s hands dropped from Yuuri’s shoulders. “What? He just threw it out there that he knows you’re Void and then just decided to critique your _skating_?”

Yuuri could only shrug.

Phichit dropped down on the couch and immediately started browsing the news. “Well, he hasn’t told anyone at least yet,” Phichit finally said.

Yuuri closed his eyes as dots swam across his field of vision. He slouched down on the couch next to Phichit and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. An invisible fist was crushing his insides, and he wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.

Yuri Plisetsky hadn’t talked to the reporters. It would have been all over the news already if he had. It would have been the scandal of the year within the skating world. There hadn’t been a single Void person among the ranks of top athletes _ever_. Yuuri could almost see the headlines:

 

_Scandal on ice – the Elusive Nihonjin revealed to be Void!_

_Soulless skating – who would have guessed?_

 

Tears wormed their way out of the corners of Yuuri’s eyes as he curled and uncurled his fists, staring at the wall.

“Hey.” Phichit nudged his shoulder. “If he was going to tell someone, he would have done so already.”

“I guess,” Yuuri sniffled. His eyes followed the pattern on Phichit’s arm, the familiar lines of the rays of the sun dancing on Phichit’s skin. Then he glanced at his own arm, pale and perfectly imageless, and the tears welled up in his eyes again. “Why can’t I just be like everyone else?” he asked through muffled sobs.

Phichit didn’t have an answer for the question, but he hugged Yuuri until he stopped crying.

 

~

 

Yuuri momentarily contemplated dropping out of the competition, but he had a hunch that it would aggravate Yuri Plisetsky, so he appeared at the morning practice session along with the other skaters. When he got to the rink he avoided eye contact with anyone and simply slid onto the ice and begun skating.

Yuri Plisetsky was twirling on the ice effortlessly, perfecting his sit spin and coming out of it with the grace of a swan. Yuuri skated around the edge of the rink, warming up his legs. He looked over where Victor Nikiforov, the current reigning champion, was stretching against the side of the rink, his back turned to Yuuri as he skated past.

Victor’s silver hair was shorter than the previous year when Yuuri had watched him win the Grand Prix Final. There was an image peeking just above the collar of his gray t-shirt, but Yuuri couldn’t see what it was. There were several more images covering Victor’s arms. There was an outline of a bear on the back of his left arm directly on top of his triceps, clearly visible from beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt.

Yuuri skated around the rink again so he could catch a glimpse of what looked to be a weird, wavy pattern on Victor’s right forearm. Yuuri didn’t know what it represented, but then again, he didn’t need to know. It was for Victor Nikiforov to know, as it was his future and his life depicted on the images.

Yuuri sighed, absently tugging the zipper of his jacket up a bit, even though he was getting warm in it. He skated around the rink for a third time, and halfway through he acquired company. Yuri Plisetsky was suddenly skating beside him, matching his pace with ease. “I see you decided to show up,” Yuri spit out. “I hope you have a better performance coming up today than that farce last night.”

Yuuri only swallowed and didn’t reply, and the Russian teenager soon left his side. Yuuri practiced a couple of spins from his program and managed to land a few easy jumps. He didn’t dare to try the quads at practice, not with all the other skaters around him, because if he failed, he was going to lose all courage and flee the rink, never to return.

Yuuri’s free skate costume similarly covered him from his skates to the tips of his fingers and all the way up almost to his jawline, but it was blue in color and the gleaming swirls on the fabric reminded him of the ocean back home in Hasetsu. His short program had been about his solitude and the happiness of finding a friend, but in his free skate, Yuuri was a raging ocean. He imagined himself as waves crashing on the shore, washing over all the people who had excluded him, bullied him, scorned him. And when he had washed them all away, the ocean within him was once more calm, serene. In the second half of his program, Yuuri was the soft waves hugging the sand on a tropical beach and the ever-calm water in the deep fjords of Norway, blue and still. The last notes of the music faded away, and Yuuri stood in the final position, his chest heaving, as the raging ocean gave way to still waters and calm, sunny days.

They could do whatever they wanted with him now. Yuuri had proved himself to be among the best skaters in the world. He had made it to the Grand Prix Final, and even if Yuri Plisetsky skated over right now with a megaphone shouting that he was Void, at least Yuuri had had this moment. He bowed down to the audiences applauding and cheering, and for that one instant, he had it all; the world at his fingertips and in the blades of his skates.

Skating first in a competition was the worst, because afterward, he had to sit through the other skaters’ programs and see them outperform him.

Only not all of them did. Not even the majority of them did.

Yuuri blinked at the scoreboards. Despite his terrible score from the short program, his free skate score was so high that he was still in second place when Victor Nikiforov skated to the middle of the rink with a smile on his handsome face.

 _Wait_.

Yuuri was in second place. And there was only Victor’s program left.

Yuuri looked down at his hands. They were trembling. As if through fog he heard Phichit screaming into his ear, congratulating him on the spot on the podium.

He had made it. He was going to be on the podium, among the three best skaters.

Yuuri swallowed, and the world slowly came to focus again. Victor was in his beginning position, and Yuuri focused on Victor taking over the ice.

He watched as Victor leaned his head back, hand reached out to the skies, and began his free skate program.

Yuuri had seen it before on video, but the previous performances paled in comparison to this. Victor skated with such precision and delicacy that Yuuri couldn’t look away. Victor’s program began with him struggling with and evading some invisible beast only he could see, and his jumps seemed like desperate attempts to break free and escape. He landed all his quads perfectly and the speed of his spins made Yuuri’s head spin just as fast.

The second half of Victor’s program showed him gathering his strength and pushing back the beast that was bothering him. Yuuri remembered the bear on the back of Victor’s arm and wondered if the invisible monster Victor was fighting was a bear. Victor pushed and the invisible force pulled, but eventually Victor seemed to vanquish the beast and his last spin was a victorious twirl that left him once again in the middle of the ice, breaths heaving his chest as he came to a stop.

“Interesting theme,” Phichit observed and tapped his phone. “It says here the theme was—“

“Struggle,” Yuuri finished for him.

“Well, that was some struggling,” Phichit said, shaking his head, smiling.

The scoreboard flashed Victor’s score, placing him on the top of the board. Yuuri read the names on the scoreboard three times before he could really be sure that yes, he had made it to the podium and won bronze.

At the medal ceremony, Yuuri found himself standing on Victor’s left side, with Yuri Plisetsky glaring at Victor from the right.

“Next year I’ll beat you, old man,” Yuri said to Victor.

“We’ll see about that,” Victor beamed. He turned to Yuuri and offered his hand. “Congrats on third place.”

“Thanks” Yuuri said weakly. Victor’s eyes seemed to be drilling holes into his skull. “Congrats on your, um, how many-eth victory?”

Victor waved his hand dismissively and smiled. “I’ve lost count. You’re coming to the banquet tonight, right?”

Yuuri swallowed. He had forgotten about the banquet, and naturally as one of the medalists he was expected to attend.

This was exactly what Yuuri had been afraid of when Phichit had first told him to compete seriously. Suddenly he was in the middle of the spotlight, and all eyes were on him. Of course, he was used to having everyone stare at him, but this time the stares were not malicious or scornful. They were admiring.

Only Yuuri knew just how quickly the stares could change from admiring to malicious.

He had seen it so many times.

A strangling feeling threatened to block his airways. Yuuri coughed. “Yeah. I guess I have to be there.”

Victor laughed. “I see the nickname the press gave you is entirely earned,” he said with a grin, and then turned to talk to Yuri Plisetsky in Russian.

Yuuri blinked. Victor had read the articles about him? Victor knew the stupid nickname the press had stamped him with?

“So, I’ll see you at the banquet, then,” Victor said as they all stepped off the podium.

“Yeah,” Yuuri said weakly.

He wondered if he could fake a stomach bug and skip the banquet.

 

~

 

“Thanks, mom, I love you too. I have to go now, Celestino is banging on the door.” Yuuri finished the phone call to his mother and opened the door.

“Why aren’t you dressed in your suit yet?” Celestino asked, glancing at the hoodie and sweatpants Yuuri had been lounging in.

Yuuri inhaled and said he was kind of hoping he could skip the banquet.

Fifteen minutes later, Celestino all but dragged Yuuri to the banquet.

“Now we can start scouting for sponsorship opportunities,” Celestino beamed. “You made the podium in the Grand Prix Final in your first international competitive season. It’s bound to get some sponsors interested in you.”

Yuuri didn’t want any sponsorships. He didn’t want to talk to the rich people offering him money for standing in front of the camera, advertising this or that soda or a pair of sneakers or whatever.

He had seen some of the ads Victor was in, usually shirtless and all his pictures on proud display.

Yuuri knew he could never do one of those ads. He remembered the billboard ad that had shaken the nation, because there had never been an ad before where the model wasn’t covered in pictures.

Yuuri had googled the ad campaign in question and found out that the model was actually just a normal person but her skin had been photoshopped to look Void. Yuuri hadn’t been able to help the bitterness he had felt upon staring at the model in an everyday setting; the pictures on her skin. After the ad campaign, she could return to her normal life, be just like everyone else. For Yuuri, there was no such luxury. He could never do a shirtless ad campaign because there would be no going back.

“Yuuri!” a voice called from behind him.

Yuuri turned, a glass of champagne in hand and smiled awkwardly at Victor, who was approaching him with Yuri Plisetsky in tow.

Victor stopped in front of Yuuri. And Yuri came to a halt beside them.

“Wait, this is confusing,” Victor said. “We can’t have two Yuris. Okay, from this on, you’re Yurio,” he said, pointing to Yuri Plisetsky.

“What? I was the first Yuri, it’s the Nihonjin who should change his name!” Yuri spat, looking furiously at Yuuri.

“Oh, don’t fret, Yurio.” Victor ruffled Yuri’s hair and turned to Yuuri. “So, how does it feel to make the podium in your first Grand Prix?”

“Hey, it was my first season in the seniors too and you never asked me that,” Yuri said, glaring at Victor.

“Shush,” Victor said fondly. It only made Yuri glare at him harder.

Yuuri swallowed. Victor was looking at him expectantly, while Yuri glared at them both in disgust. “Good. It feels good,” Yuuri managed to rasp out.

“Whatever, I’m out of here,” Yuri said, waving his hand and disappearing into the crowd, stomping his feet angrily.

“So, I see your coach is over there talking to Yakov,” Victor said, pointing over the crowd. “I’m betting they’re negotiating which sponsors will go to me and Yurio and which will go to you. Skating is a good business for the suits. We’re just their puppets, really,” Victor said amusedly.

“I don’t really care about sponsorships,” Yuuri said. In fact, right now he was thinking about retiring from skating. They could speculate about things as much as they wanted, but Yuuri had already proven himself in all aspects of life. First, they had claimed he had no future, and he had proven them wrong by waking up every morning and continuing living against all odds. Then they had claimed he would never become anything in his life, that he was destined to drift aimlessly without pictures as his guidance, and he had just now proven them wrong. But Yuuri was beginning to tread on thin ice, here. Right now, with his suit covering him up, he could hold up the pretense of normalcy, but all that would change if there were going to be shirtless ads.

Celestino wouldn’t agree to those, though. He knew just as well how important it was for Yuuri to keep his clothes on.

“Yeah, I don’t care about the sponsorships much either, but what can you do?” Victor shrugged good-humoredly. “Comes along with the occupation.”

“Hmm,” Yuuri mumbled, sipping his champagne. He had been nursing the same glass throughout the event, because he couldn’t afford to lose his bearings. Not when so much was at stake. Yuuri glanced over where he could see Yuri talking to the dark-haired skater who had placed fourth in the final. Yuuri swallowed. Just one word from Yuri Plisetsky could send Yuuri’s world tumbling downhill and into the abyss.

Yuuri just needed to survive the banquet and then he could retreat back to his life. By the time the next skating season would begin, no one would even remember the _Elusive Nihonjin_ who once stood on the podium in the Grand Prix Finals.

“That champagne looks like it’s lost all its bubbles. Let me get you a new one,” Victor said, snatching the glass from Yuuri’s hand.

“Uh, thanks,” Yuuri said to Victor’s retreating back.

Victor soon came back with two full glasses in his hands. “Here, I bet this one tastes better than the lukewarm one you had.”

Yuuri sipped the champagne. Victor stood close to him and chatted animatedly, and Yuuri tried to keep up with the conversation. There was so much positive attention on him from every direction, unfamiliar people stopping by to clink their glasses against his, slamming friendly hands on his shoulder and congratulating him for making the podium. Yuuri had to exhale shakily because he noticed he was starting to _enjoy_ the attention.

 _Don’t get used to it_ , he told himself. _It’s just temporary. Tomorrow will be a check-in back to reality for you_.

For whatever reason, Victor stayed beside him for most of the night. He supplied Yuuri with more glasses of champagne to clink against his and everyone else’s, and suspiciously Yuuri’s glass never stayed empty for long.

At some point Yuuri noticed he was drunk.

He couldn’t bring himself to care, though. If only for the one night, he could be just like everyone else and let loose.

Right?

 

~

 

It was bright when Yuuri woke up. His head felt like someone was banging it with a hammer from the inside, and his mouth tasted like something had crawled in there and died. Weeks ago.

The bright white of the hotel bed sheets made his eyes hurt as he opened them.

He was lying on his stomach on the bed, arm buried under the pillow and hair sticking to his forehead. Yuuri shifted, trying to avoid quick movements, and noticed he was shirtless. His pants were still on, though, but his shoes and socks were gone. Yuuri wiggled his toes under the blanket and carded his fingers through his hair.

That’s when he registered the breathing from the other side of the bed.

Yuuri’s eyes flew open so quickly that his hungover brain winced and wanted to curl up on itself.

He realized this wasn’t the hotel room he shared with Phichit. This room was bigger and more luxurious, and the curtains were green instead of red. Yuuri turned to his back and sat up, trying to move as silently as possible.

He turned his head so slowly it felt almost comical, scoping out the sleeping form beside him.

The outline of a bear was staring at him from the back of the arm that was visible from under the blanket. A tuft of silver hair was peeking out from between the pillows.

Yuuri was in Victor Nikiforov’s hotel room.

Yuuri was in Victor Nikiforov’s _bed_.

Yuuri was also _shirtless_. Which could only mean one thing.

Victor _knew_.

Or maybe Victor didn’t know? Maybe it had been dark when they had come in.

When had they come in? How did Yuuri end up here in the first place?

So many questions, but Yuuri didn’t have any answers. All he knew was that he needed to get away as quickly as possible.

Yuuri scrambled to his feet as gracefully as he possibly could while someone was still bashing the inside of his head with a hammer or three. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, forcing himself to remain calm. In and out. In and out. In and out.

Yuuri padded quietly across the room, searching for his shirt. He found it on the couch, wrinkled up into a ball. Yuuri pulled the shirt on and buttoned it hastily, all the while casting worried glances at the bed where Victor was still sleeping.

Yuuri fished his socks out from under the bed and pulled them on, careful to not make a sound. He put his shoes on and searched for his tie. He found it carelessly thrown over the backrest of the couch, but at least his suit jacket was hanging neatly on a hanger on the coat rack beside the door without a single wrinkle on it. So, he wouldn’t have to step out of the room looking like it was the walk of shame of the _century_. Yuuri checked the inside breast pocket and found his room key and his phone. There was at least a dozen messages, all of them probably from Phichit who was probably worried out of his mind right now.

He was pulling the jacket on when there was a noise from the bed. Yuuri froze, hoping it was just Victor tossing and turning in his sleep.

No such luck.

“Yuuri?” Victor called out drowsily.

Slowly, extremely slowly, Yuuri turned to face the bed.

Victor was staring right at him, and there was an unreadable expression on his face. “You’re leaving?” Victor asked.

Yuuri shifted his weight from one foot to the other, tugging at his jacket sleeves. “I—uh,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’m—,“ he tried again, but the words wouldn’t come out.

Victor was still staring at him with those blue eyes, his hair messy in the wake of sleeping. “Please, Yuuri. Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Yuuri wanted to turn and rush out the door, but Victor’s gaze held him, pulled him in like they were the opposite poles of a magnet.

Yuuri stopped at the foot of the bed, helplessly watching as Victor peeled the blanket off of himself, revealing a whole lot of skin and pictures.

“You’re Void,” Victor said, and it wasn’t a question.

Yuuri looked down to his feet, nodded. He waited for the disgusted words, slurs, anything.

Eventually he had to look up. Victor was still regarding him with those blue eyes, but there was no disgust in them.

The next words from Victor’s mouth completely threw him for a loop, though.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been looking for someone like me,” Victor sighed.

Yuuri blinked. The silence after the words was so long that Yuuri was afraid the universe might come to an end before the silence did. He swallowed once, twice, three times, cleared his throat. “I—What? But you—“

Victor smiled a little uncertainly and pointed to the picture on his chest. “These? I’m a fraud. These are permanent images that were made by depositing ink into my skin.”

Yuuri blinked. “So—You’re Void too?” His voice broke down toward the end of the sentence.

Yuuri had heard of other Voids, like Phichit’s sister, but he had never met one in person.

Victor nodded. “Yeah, guilty as charged.”

Yuuri suddenly felt like he had to sit down, and he more or less collapsed on the foot of the bed. There were weird star patterns swimming in front of his eyes, and his breaths were coming out as irregular gasps. _Slow down_ , he told himself. _Breathe_.

Suddenly Victor was there, a warm, worried presence against Yuuri’s side, lifting Yuuri’s head onto his lap, a hand stroking his cheek. “Yuuri, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

The stars stopped swimming and faded, and above him Yuuri could see two blue eyes staring into his worriedly.

“I’ve never—met anyone—like me,” Yuuri managed to gasp. All his life he had felt so completely alone, and now here was Victor, claiming to be like him. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that the gold medalist champion and press poster boy Victor Nikiforov was like him.

Victor Nikiforov was like him.

Victor Nikiforov was _like him_.

Yuuri looked up at the blue eyes staring at him, then looked down and brought a hand to trace the lines of the picture on Victor’s chest. “So this is—fake?” he asked, still unable to believe it. The skin felt smooth under his touch.

Victor chuckled softly. “Yeah.”

“But how—?“ Yuuri looked up at Victor’s eyes again. He suddenly realized he was in a half-lying position with his head resting on Victor’s thigh, and he was still tracing his finger over the lines on Victor’s chest.

“My family decided to cover it up when it became obvious that I was Void,” Victor said. “My family is kind of well-off, so they had the means to search for a solution. They found someone who was familiar with the procedure of putting ink into someone’s skin – it was old knowledge passed on from generation to generation. Old shaman heritage.” Victor reached out a hand and smoothed Yuuri’s hair off his forehead. “Did you know that in the old days in Russia, Void people were celebrated and they were often in positions of power? Like tribal shamans and such.”

Yuuri shook his head, trying to struggle into a more upright position, but Victor’s arm draped over his chest and gently pushed him back against the thigh beneath.

“Yeah, so when the times changed and Voids started getting hunted down, they learned to cover it up that they were Void by inking their skin. So the traditions and the knowledge remained.”

Yuuri’s eyes darted here and there across the pictures on Victor’s skin. The wave pattern on his forearm, the bear at the back of his arm that was currently mostly hidden, the sunset on his chest.

Yuuri finally felt strong enough to sit up, so he gently pushed Victor’s arm off his chest and pushed himself up from where he had been lying almost on top of Victor.

Victor moved up on the bed so Yuuri could sit more comfortably. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his hair still tousled and wearing only boxers and a blanket covering parts of his legs, looking gorgeous. Yuuri could just stare.

“So,” Victor continued. “When I was a kid they used this semi-permanent dye on my skin to make the pictures so they could _change_ over time. Then once I grew up they deposited the ink in the skin to make it permanent. I got to choose the places and the pictures, they inked me." Victor grinned. "And that’s the story of how I’ve been faking being normal all my life.”

Yuuri let his eyes wander around the room for a while, trying to make sense of what was happening. His eyes flicked over the couch and the window, but somehow they always found their way back to Victor. Victor responded to Yuuri's stare with steady eyes, full of warmth.

“It doesn’t bother you?” Yuuri finally asked. “Not having fake images, but being different? Even if others don’t know it, you do.”

Victor sighed, looking over at the window. “Yeah, it did for a time, but then I met the shaman descendant and got to hear his knowledge about the Voids, passed on by generation after generation. And I realized it wasn’t a weakness to be Void, like most people think. Quite the opposite, actually.”

Yuuri tilted his head. “How so?”

“Well, the way he explained it to me was that we’re all part of a cosmic pattern. You can think of it as a canvas, and people as the threads that make the weave; they’re woven into the pattern of the canvas, their lives tangling within the pattern in a predetermined way. Does that make sense?” Victor gave Yuuri a questioning look. Yuuri nodded shortly. “But according to the old heritage, Void people are the ones who are kind of standing outside the pattern, so they’re not woven into it. Their paths aren’t predetermined.” Victor smiled radiantly. “So essentially, Void people can make their future whatever the hell they want.”

There was a silence during which Yuuri listened to his heartbeats, now calmer but still slightly elevated in rate. He breathed in an out and then looked at Victor.

“I think I like the Russian shaman interpretation a lot better than the one about me being soulless and having no future,” he said cautiously.

Victor’s mouth spread into a wide smile. “That’s the spirit,” he said.

“Are you sure you’re like me?” Yuuri asked. He suddenly felt like this might just be an elaborate prank, and Victor would soon dump him out of the room for being a disgusting Void.

Victor shifted, throwing the blanket off his feet and pointed at his leg. “See this? That is the result of inking getting infected after it’s put in. Doesn’t look like normal pictures, does it?”

Yuuri looked at Victor’s leg. Indeed, on the side of his calf there was an area the size of a ping pong ball that had a raised scar just over the black blob that was apparently supposed to be a picture. “That’s why I don’t show much leg anywhere,” Victor said jokingly and winked. “Only my coach and my rink mates know about any of this, and they’re all sworn to secrecy.”

Yuuri suddenly remembered the encounter in the bathroom. “How did Yurio know about me, by the way?”

“Your sister is a big fan of Yurio’s, apparently she accidentally mentioned it in one of the miles-long love emails she sent to him.” Victor beamed. “And well, Yurio already knew about me, so to him it wasn’t a big deal.”

“So you knew—?“

“Only like two days ago, when Yurio told me,” Victor said. “Saying that he was excited about it would be an exaggeration, because Yurio doesn’t do _excitement_ , but he said I should come talk to you. So last night I did.”

“I woke up without my shirt on,” Yuuri suddenly said. When had he taken it off? At the banquet? _Please, not the banquet_. The headache that he had momentarily forgotten due to Victor’s revelations was coming back, hammering its way into his skull again.

“Well, I brought you up here after you tossed your jacket at me and said you felt hot. The rest you took off here in my room and then you just… passed out.” Victor grinned slightly.

Well, that explained why the jacket was hung neatly while the rest of his clothes were all over the place. Yuuri hung his head, embarrassed.

“It was kind of cute,” Victor remarked.

Yuuri buried his head into his hands.

He felt Victor shift on the bed, and there were hands on his hands then, prying them off his face. Yuuri looked up, and Victor’s eyes were very close to his.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Victor sighed.

Yuuri could have said the same. He swallowed audibly as Victor leaned in, pressing a light kiss on his mouth. It was a soft touch of lips, like a confirmation that they were both indeed _here_ , present and accounted for, and they were the same.

When Victor leaned in to kiss Yuuri again, though, Yuuri stopped him with fingers pressed on Victor’s lips.

Victor frowned. “Something wrong?”

Yuuri smiled. “No, I just really, _really_ need to brush my teeth before we do that again. My mouth tastes like something died in there.”

Victor kissed him again anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a one-shot I wrote in less than 24 hours, during which I forgot to eat and barely slept, because that’s what fanfiction does to a person ( _fanfic – not even once_ ). That being said, I can leave it at this, or I can continue it if you want (there are still some things I might want to write out). Leave me a comment if you want more of the same ‘verse! I might also write short drabbles on tumblr at some point... we'll see. 
> 
> For this AU, I switched stuff around a bit, like ages and skating events and whatnot, like Yuri P. being in Sochi GPF, Yuuri not blowing it at Sochi, and Phichit being only a year behind Yuuri in college... Artistic liberties etc.  
> ~  
> If you have any questions, comments or feedback ask me on my [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below. All feedback is much appreciated!  
> I also made a [pencil sketch](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/post/161400775659/i-sketched-a-quick-pencil-drawing-of-the-ending) of the scene at the end where Yuuri's head is resting in Victor's lap. ^_^  
> ~  
> Thanks to my ever-patient beta reader [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/), who tolerates me even when I unexpectedly drop a bomb of 14k+ words without any warning.  
> ~  
> This story was my (much-needed) break from the [messages in a bottle](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10893924/chapters/24213525) fic, but I'm going back to writing that now. :)


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